Photovoltaic Design and Installation For Dummies

Excellent book. A lot of very good information. Definitely not a Dummies book at all. This one was very well written. It encompasses most if not all necessary information to get you started on your Solar array installation.

Really helpful books giving specific and concrete information are surprisingly hard to find. This book provides an abundance of specific information to a person installing their own solar equipment. Written in plain English it covers most of what you need to know from the solar panels to the inverter and every component in-between. A most helpful organization of information clearly separates grid-tied and off-grid information. Site information, planning, component by component equipment, wiring, safety devices, permitting, inspection, maintenance and more. Having read a half dozen books looking for guidance in off-grid solar, this book provides ten times more helpful information than any other book I've purchased. Only "con" is that being a visual guy I'd love to see drawings or photos included with the descriptions. Sadly, there are few.

I'm coming at this as a homeowner and generally handy person who's up for a bit of a challenge, wanting to install my own PV system on the roof of my Southern California home. There seem to be a lot of books on solar power that are just kind of informational and theoretical and don't really to tell you how to actually plan & install a system in a hands-on practical way. This is one of the few that actually aims to do that.Looking at a finished PV system sitting on someone's roof, it is kind of deceptively simple. And the nuts and bolts of installation are not that hard, if you can do electrical work, it's not that different from any other kind of electrical equipment installation. BUT. The planning and understanding the components is really quite a challenge. The equipment has very unique properties. You have to analyze your electrical needs, survey the site and it's solar potential, understand the impact of the daily and seasonal workings of the sun and weather, figure out if you want batteries and how much battery power you need, and understand the main components, the solar panels themselves, the charge controller, the inverter, and the circuits and safety provisions. Sizing all the components. Permitting and nuts and bolts hardware installation. The book covers all of this, for the most part, in an organized, disciplined, and reasonably thorough manner.In fact, the book seems to have even higher goals than mine, which is just to plan, install, and manage my own home system. This book is also overtly aimed at those interested in becoming a professional PV installer. You'd be pretty well grounded in that goal having thoroughly absorbed this book, along with some experience actually installing some systems, I think.Is it perfect? No. For one thing, it's a "For Dummies" book so the introduction and organization are, frankly, kind of ridiculously repetitive. He tells us what he's going to tell us about 7 times - not exaggerating - before he actually starts the telling. And then at the start of each chapter, he tells you what he's gonna tell you another two or three times for good measure. Tiresome. This book is not really for dummies wanting to get a little basic information. True dummies, I think, are not going to be installing their own PV systems. It's for people with some ability who want to become experts.There are a few things that could simplify things for a lot of people. Yes, it's good and necessary to be able to analyze someone's electrical needs by going around to each appliance and light and electrical load and checking it's wattage and the owner's usage patterns. But there's an easier and even more accurate way that most solar pros make use of, which is to simply check the past electrical bills for average daily, monthly and seasonal energy consumption. That's not an estimation, that's hard data. And you're gonna want to do this even after you do a load analysis just to double check your work. Sure, newly constructed buildings won't have past electric bills. But a lot of cases certainly will. But absolutely no mention of this tactic is made in the section on load analysis. Really odd.Next, I would have liked to see some representative, carefully chosen, very specific examples of actual completed solar installations to illustrate in concrete terms the main types of installations (grid direct, stand-alone battery, and grid-connected with battery back-up.) How they were sized. The specific components used. Photos of the installations. That would have been immensely helpful in seeing how all the separate steps are brought together to a completed whole. There's nothing like that. This leaves all the separate chapters on various stages of the planning and execution seeming still theoretical and somewhat abstract.There's not a single actual photo in this book. The diagrams and charts are fairly good. But not enough.On balance, this is still a very good book with most of the critical theory and information in one place that you are absolutely going to need to do a proper PV installation. Are you really going to be ready to immediately plan and build a PV system? Probably not quite. But you'll have a very thorough grasp of what all the considerations are.

This is the best of the half dozen books I have read about solar electricity generation. All the other books I have read teach you about solar systems in general but don't give you enough of the nitty gritty nuts and bolts details to actually put one together. This book literally tells you what nuts and bolts are needed.After having read the book I'm more excited about the info in the book than the prospect of actually being a PV installer. The trade sounds like a challenging if not overwhelming combination of electrician, electrical & electronic engineer, roofer and contractor.All signs indicate that PV has a bright future hardy har so for those who wish to get into the trade this is an excellent place to start and probably all the book learning you'll need.

Easy to read, good book.

As a book designed for dummies and I think that accurately described me, I have found the book thus far nothing like the a beginner's guide I was hoping for. It is actually quite detailed in it's content, providing a lot of detailed information and would be an excellent point of reference for someone thinking of going into this business for themselves, something it refers to several times. I have already built an off grid solar panel system. I wanted to broaden my knowledge, but didn't need to know how everything works, just the essentials of how to get from A to B and how I might make my next system better. So, from my perspective there's too much detail here. It is not really written for dummies, perhaps you need a dummy to work with and find the best content, not an expert trying to come down to our level.

This is an excellent introduction to solar power. It is very well written by a man that obviously knows his subject. It is lucid and yet apparently comprehensive. I have a hard time getting my head around many principles of electricity, but Mr. Mayfield gently nudges me along with illuminating analogies and precise, simple and understandable language. I have tried other books on the subject written by electrical engineers but my eyes have quickly glazed over. Although I usually pass by anything in the "Dummies" stable, this book is worth every penny and then some. Thanks to Mr. Mayfield for the considerable work that obviously went into the production of this fine technical publication.

Very good